Car Seats are Like Milk

“Would you smell this milk and tell me whether you think it is still good? It expired three days ago.”

Uh. If you have to ask, maybe it’s best to throw it out. Better safe than sick, right?

When it comes to food, those kinds of decisions aren’t difficult. But did you know that car seats have expiration dates, too?

This week, Sept. 16-22 is National Child Passenger Safety Week.

According to Jackie Spainhower, the Northwest Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety Regional coordinator, they sure do. 

Find car seat and booster information at
www.savemolives.org/child-passengers.html

"Many parents don't realize that using an expired car seat can compromise their child's safety," Spainhower said. "Unless you have specific directions from the manufacturer, the car seat label or the manual that state otherwise, you should stop using a car seat after six years. Expired car seats should be destroyed so no one uses the seat thinking it's still safe."

Car seats have a rough life. The materials in them expand when temperatures inside vehicles soar well above 120 degrees in the sun and way down below freezing in the winter. They take a pounding from little bouncing bottoms – and excited, jumping feet – and are schlepped none too gently from vehicle to vehicle. Hairline cracks can form - too tiny for most to see - yet they can compromise the seat and cause it to perform poorly during a crash.

Good thing there are helpful Missourians who are certified to check car seats. They want you to know they’re happy to take a look at your car seat, get it installed correctly – about 80 percent of seats need at least some kind of adjustment – and answer your questions about the best seating for infants, toddlers and junior backseat drivers.

Visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Inspection Station locator to find certified experts near you -  www.nhtsa.gov/cps/cpsfitting/index.cfm . Almost all perform the service free of charge.

They will not, however, sniff the contents of that bottle you found under the passenger seat.

New Car Seat Recommendations

When it comes to our children, their safety is paramount. We do everything in our power to keep them safe. One easy way is to buckle them in a car seat.

The recently released guidelines from American Academy of Pediatrics recommend keeping your toddler rear-facing until age two. Children under age two are 75 percent less likely to die or be severely injured in a crash if they are rear-facing. The new guidelines also say:

Use front-facing seat with five-point harness straps as long as possible. Many go up to 65 or even 80 lbs. Make sure kids stay in booster seats until they reach 4 foot 9 inches. The typical eight-year-old doesn't reach this height.

But the fact of the matter remains that if you don't have your car seat installed correctly or don't have your child buckled into it, the best car seat in the world isn't going to protect your child. A car seat, even if it's covered in polka-dots, is a serious piece of safety equipment. And it takes some serious know-how to install it correctly.

These are just a few of the things that can go wrong with installation: routing seat belts incorrectly, not putting seat belts in lock mode, using both the lower anchors of the LATCH system and the seat belt, connecting the lower anchors and tethers of the LATCH system to the wrong points in the car, forgetting to use the tether at all, and not putting enough weight on the seat as it is being installed

Rather than fret about whether your baby is really safe in their sophisticated, expensive, top-of-the-line car seat, why not just get it checked out by an expert?

Missouri has more than 200 safety inspection stations. Certified technicians can inspect your child safety seat and show you how to correctly install and use it.
Even if they only tweak your installation a little - the average installation has three errors - you can walk away with valuable piece of mind. If they do a complete overhaul on your install job, you will be grateful they did.

Find a list of inspection stations and the one closest to you here.

Next time you look back and see that adorable, sleeping baby, you'll feel much better knowing that he/she is safe.

Precious Cargo

I’m less than two weeks away from having a baby. Last thing on my to-do list? Install the car seat. Turns out it was a little more complicated than I predicted.

I spent a Saturday morning taking the seat out of the box, reading the car seat instruction manual, looking at my car and referencing the car manual. Both my car seat and car came equipped with LATCH anchors, which are supposed to make installing a car seat a piece of cake.

Not so much. The safest place for a car seat is the center position in the back seat,but my car manual instructed me that my LATCH anchors were on the passenger seats, not the center position. So do I use LATCH and place my car seat in an outboard seat or do I use the seat belt in the center seat?

I didn’t know but luckily I did know that Missouri has a wealth of resources, including certified car seat technicians and inspection stations located across the state. I set up an appointment with one of those techs to help me install my seat.

It took less than 20 minutes and my seat was installed, and most importantly – installed correctly. According to NHTSA, three out of four car seats are installed incorrectly, putting children at risk. After watching her install the seat in my car, I was then able to go home and help my husband install the car seat base in his truck.

Even if you are able to make sense out of the car seat manual and install your car seat yourself, it’s still important to make sure it’s done correctly. Find an inspection station near you and have a car seat technician check to make sure your seat is installed correctly.

You can find a list of inspection stations and also check out the instructional videos located at http://www.savemolives.com/child-passengers.html.

There’s nothing more important than securing your most precious cargo.